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S4-2 Empirical evidence about palliative care and the sociodemographics of people who receive assisted dying (AD) around the world

bmjspcare · 2026-05-26 · canonical JSON source

3 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Whenever jurisdictions discuss the possibility of legalizing Assisted Dying (AD), people emphasize the role of palliative care (PC) as an alternative to AD, and the potential for people from marginalized demographics to be disproportionately affected by the availability of AD. With the benefit of data from multiple jurisdictions, we now know that AD recipients have very high rates of PC involvement, and that the populations who receive the best PC also have the highest rates of AD. This suggests that in practice, PC appears to be a complement rather than an alternative to AD. We also know that by every available measure, marginalized populations are less likely to receive AD than the population average. This data has important implications for policy discussions about marginalization, and about the relative strengths and limitations in our capabilities as a PC community. It also highlights the need for better research into the type of suffering that prompts AD requests.